“Futility” as a Criterion in Limiting Treatment

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Abstract
In their Sounding Board article (June 4 issue),1 Truog et al. convincingly argue that the concept of futility is ill suited to be a rationale for limiting life-sustaining treatments: use of the concept too often obscures the value choices inherent in decisions to terminate treatment. As the authors put it, "the problem with futility is that its promise of objectivity can rarely be fulfilled."